Today is Monday. The day I go to A.A.
This was my third week in the meeting and I feel it has already helped me. Sometimes it's good to hear form people who have it worse than you do. Other times, it's just talking about a topic that clears things up for me. At times, I find the very answer I was struggling to come to terms with.
We need to talk. When we do, we like someone to listen. Last week went good for me.
I applied some of what I learned in group to my life. When presented with a problem, I addressed that problem rather than let it grow into a mountain that slowly pushed me out of character.
It amazes me how many people are here in prison that don't use their voice. They sit down, shut up and just digest the constant pile of shit they are fed. We are supposedly criminals. Gangsters who broke the law for one reason or another. Yet all of a sudden here we become someone who forgets there is a set of nuts that hangs between our legs. Perhaps those nuts have puckered up and crawled into the ass. Like a dog with his tail between his legs.
Prison is a dog-eat-dog environment and you better believe that when you sit down on your bunk and squat to pee, these men notice. In my attempt at becoming a man who can stay sober, then lead my family....I need to make sure I have a set of balls between my legs.
Often times I tell my lady we are in the hardest part of our relationship. If this life of separation doesn't break us and pull us apart, then neither will the free world. Most people go through the honeymoon stage and after a few years push comes to shove and two people who started a life together fall apart. If you can stand together through a fence and the miles that separate, then you can stand through life. This is what I tell my lady.
Likewise, if in this world of gangsters and big dogs you can hold your own. If you can stand tall and not be moved. If you can hold fast to everything you live in here. Then you will be a success on the street in the real world.
This is what I have taken from my short time in A.A.
No, I'm not using drugs. I am clean. But I'm realizing there are many other fates a man can encounter other than drugs. My life will be a struggle. As an addict I caused my brain to demand drugs. I altered my state of mind and now I will walk through life having to keep a close eye on things that could become a trigger and cause me to relapse. That small problem, that goes unaddressed, becomes a mountain could soon enough cause me to slip and fall. So, I'm learning to stand up and hold fast to what I love.
Not only do I want to stay clean, I want to love and lead my family. In order to do that, I have to put life in perspective. I'm sure A.A. meetings take on different meaning for every man that attends.
Drugs steal your pride, your dignity and the balls that hang between your legs. You live a life of shame. Being a slave to a vice sucks. I'm proud to be a leader. A man who my lady can look to for advice and my mother can be proud to have as a son.
My life will have struggles, but I know how to handle them as well. It's this very thing that causes me to live life as if there could be no tomorrow. Perhaps you should do the same.
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